This module defines the interfaces for comparators in the TCS
Alignment Toolbox. A comparator is in essence a function that defines a
dissimilarity on a value set. The possible value sets are defined in the
sequence module.
In the TCS Alignment Toolbox we require the output values of comparators
to lie in the range [0,1]. Many natural dissimilarities on value sets do
not meet this criterion, such that additional normalization has to be
applied. To that end this package also contains a Normalizer interface
for functions that map real values from the range [0, infinity) to the
range [0,1].
Finally the TCS Alignment Toolbox also provides the means to learn
parameters of comparators. To enable that comparators must implement the
DerivableComparator interface or - even better - the
SparseDerivableComparator interface to properly define the parameters
that can be learned and the derivative of the dissimilarity with respect
to these parameters.
The SkipExtendedComparator and the ComparisonBasedSkipExtendedComparator
class are convenience classes to make the implementation of further
comparators easier.
You can find a lot of helpful standard implementations of comparators in
the comparators-lib module.
JarCasting